Food Insecurity and Childhood Obesity: A Systematic Review

Addressing food insecurity while promoting healthy body weights among children is a major public health challenge. Our objective is to examine longitudinal associations between food insecurity and obesity in U.S. children aged 1 to 19 years. Sources for this research include PubMed, CINAHL, and Scopus databases (January 2000 to February 2022). We included English language More

Forms of Community Engagement in Neighborhood Food Retail: Healthy Community Stores Case Study Project

Community engagement is well established as a key to improving public health. Prior food environment research has largely studied community engagement as an intervention component, leaving much unknown about how food retailers may already engage in this work. The purpose of this study was to explore the community engagement activities employed by neighborhood food retailers More

Policy Approaches to Healthier Food Banking

People who rely on the charitable food system both want and deserve nutritious food and beverages that support their health. Yet a 2018 report by MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger and the Rudd Center for Food Policy and Obesity found that, on average, 25 percent of food bank distributions remain unhealthy. CSPI conducted research More

Healthier Food Donation Guidelines for Retailers and Distributors

Nutritious donations are more important than ever: 60 million people turned to the charitable food system in 2020. Food banks rely on retail and distributor donations for about 30 percent of inventory, and often receive unwanted unhealthy food, like soda and candy. This resource was developed to help food retailers and distributors donate more nutritious More

Supporting Wellness at Pantries (SWAP) Toolkit 2021

SWAP was developed in 2016 and revised in 2020 to align with the Healthy Eating Research Nutrition Guidelines for the Charitable Food System. Revised tools include: SWAP Toolkit SWAP and Alignment with the HER Nutrition Guidelines SWAP: Overview of a Stoplight Nutrition System for Food Banks and Food Pantries Steps for Getting Started Using SWAP More

Promoting Equitable Expansion of the SNAP Online Purchasing Pilot

The USDA Online Purchasing Pilot, which allows SNAP participants to shop and pay for groceries online, rapidly expanded during the COVID-19 pandemic. From March 2020 to March 2021, the number of participating states increased from 5 to 47. This brief assesses whether the Pilot promotes healthy food access (using the criteria of availability and utilization) More

USDA Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) Vendor Criteria: An Examination of US Administrative Agency Variations

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC), administered by the United States Department of Agriculture, is associated with improved healthy food and beverage access due to its requirement for minimum stock of healthy foods and beverages in WIC-eligible stores. The selection and authorization criteria used to authorize WIC vendors varies widely More